“Outline the circumstances surrounding the composition and performance of Handel’s Water Music Suite No. 2, HWV 349” Handel’s Career
In 1710, Handel moved to London from Italy where he found work as a Kapellmeister to Prince Georg. A Kapellmeister was a highly prestigious job of the time; a Kapellmeister translates roughly to modern English as the musical direc tor. As a Kapellmeister, Handel would have been superior over the musicians under the person he worked for; Handel was the person in charge of all the musicians that Prince Georg had employed. st
In 1717, Handel moved to Middlesex to work as a house composer for James Brydges, 1 Duke of Chandos. Whilst in Canons, Handel composed to Oratorio “Ester”, the pastoral opera Acis and Galatea as well as the Chandos Anthems. As a court composer, Handel would’ve had to compose music at a moment’s notice by those he was employed (more obviously in the title of the job).
However, Handel would also have been in charge of the maintenance of the musicians of the cou rt’s instruments as well as disciplining the musicians of the court. Also in 1717, Handel had the first performance of The Water Music Suites. The Water Music S uites were first performed, with an orchestra of on the river Thames as entertainment to the King as he travelled upstream, with several aristocrats, to Whitehall P alace in Chelsea. The first performance of Handel’s Water Music Suite was so much of a success , that King George I asked for it to be played
twice after, once after the first full performance and then on the return excursion from Whitehall Palace to London. Further to this, Handel was also commissioned to compose four anthems for the coronation of King George II in 1727, one of which is the popular Zadok the Priest. Another notable success of Handel is his famous oratorio, ‘The Messiah’ (HWV 56) which was composed in 1741 and later performed in 1742 in Dublin for his friend Charles Jennens. It was the first one of the first notable performance of an oratorio due to it being one of the first fully f ully English oratorio. The music for the royal fireworks (HWV 351) was one of the final work that Handel composed that brought him success before he died in 1759. It was first performed in 174 9 in order to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.
Where and when was the work composed and for whom? It is unknown for as to where and when Handel’s Water Music Suites were composed. It is likely that
the Water Music Suites were written prior to Handel moving to Middlesex to work for James Brydges at Cannons as he would have seen King George I almost every day as part of his duties as Kapellmeister to his highness as well as the fact that King George I requested for a piece of music to be composed for his excursion down the river Thames. However, it is just as likely that Handel could have started the composition before leaving to become house composer in Canons, Middlesex and finished it by early 1717 in order to allow (also gather) the performers to play on the king’s excursion
to Whitehall Palace, Chelsea, to learn and perfect the piece before playing the piece in front of the king and his aristocrats.
The Nature of any manuscript sources used The original manuscript for Handel’s W ater Music Suites has not survived to this day but other pieces of his music such as the sacred oratorio “Ester” which he composed whilst employed at
canons are held in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge which are in his original handwriting. However, the water music suites have been copied and suited to different versions from the original manuscript which has been lost to time. A copy of the water music suites is currently held in the University of Cambridge which is dated to the earliest of 1736. This however is likely to be a copy of the original or at least a version of the original as it is dated 19 years after the first performance.
Instruments and Ensembles of the Period The instruments during the baroque period were very different to that of modern day instruments. In the string instruments, there is not so much of a difference when compared against the modern day counterparts. The differences of the two period violins are the shorter neck in the baroque violin as well as a flatter bridge allowing for easier double stopping when playing and a smaller body to the violin. The smaller body of the violin therefore meant that baroque violins are a lot quieter than the modern day instruments in comparison which were more suited to playing in a smaller groups (i.e a string quartet). Another difference to string instruments of the baroque period was the use of gut wound string instead of the modern day metal wound strings. The gut string produced a much softer and sonorous tone than today’s modern metal wound s trings.
During the baroque period, brass instruments were all natural instruments as valves had not been made yet and so they were just shaped tubes/ columns of brass. This then meant that they had a limited register compared to that of their modern day counterparts. However, during the later baroque period (Handel’s time), crooks had been invented for brass instruments. The crooks were
replaceable parts in a brass instrument that allowed it to play in different keys depending on the crook placed in the instrument. The limitations of a c rook therefore meant that the brass instrument couldn’t change key during the middle of a piece easily.
Woodwind instruments of the baroque period were also of the same nature to brass instruments in the sense that their register was limited to around 1 -2 octaves. Reeded instruments such as the bassoon and the oboe had longer reeds than that of present day instruments, as well as this, they had no keys and they changed the sound from their instruments through pressing holes on their instruments, very much like a recorder. Also, wind instruments of the baroque period were made entirely of wood and not of today’s equivalents for t he instruments.
Ensembles of the period were very secular with many small string groups with very few woodwind and brass players. Large orchestras, such as the group of musicians Handel had for when the first performance of the Water Music Suites was done were rare of the time as brass and woodwind players were all around the country and never really collated in one place at any given time. This
therefore meant that composers were limited in the scale of their compositions as they had to compose for the instrumentalists around at the time of performance.
The development of the orchestral suite in the Baroque Era The formation of orchestra during the baroque period during Handel’s time is different to today’s modern orchestral layout. It wasn’t until the late baroque period/
early classical period that parts of the modern day orchestral layout was set up. However, during the baroque period, the conductor’s counterpart would often
play the harpsichord with the orchestra with the two violin sections on the outside of the orchestra and the other instruments (viola, cello, double bass, flutes, oboes, bassoons, brass and timpani’s) ---
Bibliography Information about Handel’s life:
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/handel/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel Information on music composed by Handel: http://imslp.org.uk/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel Information on the duties of a court composer: http://musiced.about.com/od/medievalto20thcentury/a/The-Role-Of-Music-And-Composers.htm Information about the Original Manuscript: E-mail to the British Library who e-mailed back, see attachment for full e-mail http://depfacfmnewton.lib.cam.ac.uk/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=87&recCount=25&recPointer=1&bibId=423638 Information on the formation of the baroque orchestra plus image: http://dandanmusic.weebly.com/the-baroque-and-classical-period-orchestras.html
